Room For Me
by Cris
Summary: After the events of the movie, James and Emily must navigate the ins and outs of a difficult relationship, and also figure out what to do about their dysfunctional families.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: All standard disclaimers apply._

**Room For Me**

* * *

"Em." She didn't move. James hadn't expected her to be a sound sleeper - something about psychological baggage and bad dreams, maybe - but, apparently, she was. She lay on her side, facing him, one arm tucked under her head, her mouth open just a little, just enough that he could hear a faint whistle every now and then, when she breathed. She was impossibly fetching, and James didn't think he felt that way just because she was one of only two girls he'd ever seen sleeping. She really was beautiful - tragic, dangerous, perhaps, but nonetheless beautiful. He studied her slender face, her eyelashes dark as bruises against her cheeks. Her hair had lost some of its summer gold already, but he liked the darker tones, too, the richness of the brown against her skin. She still had little sun freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her mouth was perfectly shaped, perfectly alluring, her lips maybe still a little swollen from their extended kissing and lovemaking the night before.

Lovemaking, he thought as he considered the girl sleeping beside him. Was that what they had done? Sex, certainly, but for him the l-word had a different connotation. Something deeper, more meaningful. It had been meaningful for him, but what did she think? In the dirty light of a rainy New York morning, would she feel the same? He knew she had plenty of experience, knew she liked sex, but what would that mean when she woke?

"Em," he tried again, and reached out a hesitant hand to touch her bare arm. She seemed unfazed by nakedness, something he assumed caused inhibitions for most girls - not Em. Her blankets were twisted around her legs, most of her skin left bare to his eyes. And the windows, James noted with a touch of amused resignation. Her curtains had been open the entire night. Not that anyone could see anything now, with the angle of the bed, but he distinctly remembered standing in front of those windows for quite some time, in various states of undress. Good god, if his mother could see him now. He cracked a smile, unable to keep it from his face, and he was glad for a moment that Em was still sleeping, that she hadn't seen the foolish, funny grin he knew must be plastered across his mouth. He traced fingertips lightly up her arm, enchanted by the sweet little crease where the underside of the limb met her body. She shivered at his touch - finally, movement other than the flutter of her stomach as she breathed - and turned her head into the pillow. He was loathe to disturb her, but it was Friday morning and he didn't know what kind of schedule she might keep on Fridays. He hadn't heard an alarm or anything, but he was perfectly aware that she had not set one the night before. "Em, it's morning."

"And?" Her voice was loose, sleepy. James felt sure that if he hadn't fallen in love with her already, that voice would have done it.

"Well, it's Friday. I didn't want you to miss school or work or whatever."

She shifted, uncurling the arm she'd been sleeping on and stretching her legs experimentally in the tangle of sheets. James couldn't take his eyes off the sinuous, graceful movements. He felt his blood begin to pulse, to pound, and the familiar tension of physical desire grip his body in a way he couldn't control. Lovely. Perfect. He silently cursed his body's terrible timing as Em slid against him. He had no choice but to put his arms around her, and she settled against his side, her head on his shoulder, with boneless grace. "No classes," she mumbled, not opening her eyes. "Don't work. Sleep."

She was the boss. James relaxed and let the worry about scheduling bleed out of his body. The other tension wouldn't be so easy to fix, though, and he hoped she would continue to lie still if she insisted on sleeping against him. He didn't expect anything more from her, wouldn't dream of asking for sex again - not now, not in the morning, with so much still up in the air. So much they needed to talk about that they hadn't. Touch had been necessary last night; it soothed the hurt her absence had caused. To feel her strong, slender arms around him, her hands gripping his shoulders, his hair, had been...he had no words to describe it. And then the wet heat of her body, and how she laughed, putting him at ease, making this first time less awkward than he had feared. Beautiful creature. He smiled and kissed her forehead, one closed eyelid. That was about all he could reach from this angle. His near arm was under her, curled up and over her hip, his hand resting on the jutting angle of bone. While Lisa P. was the acknowledged vixen of the park, James knew that if he had to make a choice he'd choose Em every time. She was spare where Lisa P. was lush, almost tomboyish compared to Lisa P.'s blatant trumpeting of her womanhood. She was also smarter, gutsier, stronger, and more passionate than James bet Lisa would ever be.

And right now she was very present, very warm, and very much curled against him. She took a deep breath that he could feel against his arm, almost a yawn, and exhaled a hot rush of air across his chest. The action spawned an immediate reaction in his body, and he clutched at her hipbone. He'd had no idea it was possible to _want_ someone like this, the desire so sheer, so physically overwhelming. Certainly he'd wanted her before, but he'd had no idea - could not have imagined - what sex with her would be like. Now that he knew, he felt it even more powerfully. He could almost - almost - forgive Connell for sleeping with her, if this was how it felt.

A low chuckle brought him back to earth, and James caught his breath, startled, as she shifted against him, her head gliding further toward the center of his body, and she encased one flat nipple in her mouth, her tongue sliding against it with agonizing intensity. He almost yelped, catching the sound just in time before it embarrassed him to the point of no return.

"Em." His voice sounded funny to him - strained, higher than normal - and he cleared his throat and tried again. "Em. Maybe you shouldn't - "

"Shut up," she said pleasantly, her voice low, languid. "I'm not stupid." Her nearer hand slid over his hip, under the blankets, and grasped the hard length of him. James had to bite back another yelp, and he felt like his entire universe shrank to nothing but the feel of her hand and mouth, the hot pressure of her sleepy morning self. "Believe it or not," she said, rubbing her nose against his chest, tickling, "I don't take many guys to bed. That doesn't mean I don't know what happens in the morning."

"Right." James felt rather proud of himself that he'd been able to respond at all. Then her hand moved, stroking him gently, and rational thought fled. He let her do what she would, unable to help himself. They still needed to talk. But, good god, she was good at that...

She released him, and he felt a momentary panic - she wouldn't really leave him like that, would she? - before her mouth found his. That was better. He loved kissing her. Her hands held his face, slid into his hair; she smelled like sleep and like a woman, and he loved it. Unable to resist, he slid his hands over the impossible softness of her stomach, hovering over him, and up to her perfectly-shaped breasts. She pressed against his hands appreciatively as she continued to kiss him, and threw one of her long legs over his torso, straddling him.

"God, Em," he bit out, unable to say anything more coherent.

"Who knew you'd get religious," she laughed. Then as he moved his hands, rubbing his thumbs across her hardened nipples, she pressed further into his touch. "Yes," she said. "Like that."

Hearing pleasure in her voice, he thought, was maybe the most erotic thing he'd ever experienced. He slid down, away from her mouth, holding her still above him, and closed his mouth over one nipple. Why were breasts so tantalizing, he wondered offhand, with the small part of his brain still able to think. What was the function of that? He was no scientist; he had no idea. It didn't really matter anyway - what mattered were the little noises she was making, her head above his, her arms holding her steady. Daring, unsure what she would think, he scraped his teeth carefully across the nipple in his mouth. "Fuck," she said, and a strange sort of keening note entered her breathless voice. "Yes. You can bite; I like it."

He did, carefully, nipping at her skin, then swirling his tongue against the same spot so that any inadvertent pain bled away into wet heat. She hadn't been lying, by the sounds she was making and the way her arms shook, fighting to keep her upright. Still licking and kissing her chest, he slowly placed one hand on the inside of her thigh. She'd let him touch her last night, and he hoped he wasn't being too forward now, but his body ached to feel the impossible slickness of her.

She didn't pull away, and he slid his hand higher, brushing a small patch of curls before slipping gently past her outer folds, running his fingers across the slick, swollen tissue, coating them in her wetness. She grunted and dropped her head against his; he could hear her panting as he stroked her. He was still unsure of what she liked, what made her feel good, and she seemed past the point of verbal cues now. So he moved his hand slowly, learning the feel of her, before finding her clit with his thumb and massaging it gently. Her arms shook harder and he felt her legs open wider, her knees sliding away from his sides. This brought her down closer to his body, and before he quite knew what she meant to do, her body was in position, pressing against his shaft. With one groan and another thrust, both involuntary, he was inside her. She made a satisfied noise and rocked her hips slowly, and it was his turn to pant, to struggle for air and sanity against the sweet, fiery torture of her body surrounding him, moving with his in the most intimate of ways. He kept his thumb on her clit, stroking, trying to be gentle even with the impossible distraction as they moved, give and take.

It was over too soon and not soon enough at the same time, he thought, as Em sped up her movements and he matched her intensity, his body aching for release, his entire being set on that moment. She quivered, swore again, and her elbows buckled, and James felt her explode around him, her body writhing, pulling at him in a way that was too much. It drove him over the edge, too, and he thrust up twice, three times, vaguely hearing his voice but unsure what he was saying. Bliss. Perfection. She collapsed on top of him, chest heaving as she fought for air, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her slippery, sweaty back, convinced that it would be impossible to let go.

"You're a fast learner," she said finally, a hint of laughter in her voice, and he heard the return of the familiarity that had been so easy between them during the summer. She shifted to the side, off of him, but did not seem any more inclined to leave his arms than he was to release her.

"You're a good tutor." He kissed the top of her head, rested his cheek against her hair. "Are you like a mind-reader or something?"

"Clearly not." She tipped her head up, and she was smiling. Really smiling, in a way that stopped his heart. The expression on his face must have mirrored his awestruck attraction, because her smile widened even more and she laughed. It was a delighted, wondering sound. "I never saw you coming."

"Just out of curiosity, what did you see? What did you think the summer would be like - your near future, now, or whatever?"

She shrugged, and the brilliant smile disappeared. "Don't know. Hard to say. I was miserable back in Penn, but I didn't want to stay in New York, either."

"Why not?"

She rested her chin on his chest, seemingly willing to talk to him now that they were both awake and their bodies temporarily sated. "It's hard to explain, and you'll probably just think I'm even more screwed up than you already do."

"You're not screwed up, Em." It wasn't true, and he knew it. What he meant was that she wasn't screwed up enough to scare him away - wasn't broken enough to be unfixable, at least from his vantage point.

"I am," she said, but there was no malice in her voice. It was a simple statement of fact. "I still love him, you know?"

James felt his heart drop. "Connell?"

"Connell?" She looked at him as if he were truly crazy and sat up, pushing off of him and reaching for the tank top she'd abandoned the night before. "Christ, no." The scorn in her voice surprised him...scorn, and was there something else? "My dad."

"Oh." That made more sense. "Right."

"Nothing will bring my mom back, and I don't want him to be lonely or anything. I just..." She stopped, running a frustrated hand through her long hair and shaking her head.

"I know."

Her troubled eyes met his again. "I believe you."

"It's hard, you know, growing out of home. For you it's probably exponentially harder, with Francy and everything." He reached forward and kissed her again. "Can I buy you breakfast?"

"I thought you were broke." She slid her legs over the edge of the bed, sitting upright. Her movements were slow - reluctant, maybe?

"Insolvent maybe is the better word. It's like those fat cat bankers who declare personal bankruptcy but still manage to spend summer in Monte Carlo or whatever." He ran a hand down her arm, loving the feel of warm, supple skin, the shine of weak, rainy New York light as it played against her kneecaps. "So...breakfast?"

She considered him, then stood up and shook her hair out, running a hand through the tangles. "There's a deli at the end of the block," she said. "Bagels?"

"Sounds good." He pulled on the shirt she'd draped over the side of the tub. It was still damp, but not dripping. The clammy fabric chilled him, and he cursed under his breath.

"Peanut butter, please," she added, "or jam. I can't stand cream cheese or lox."

"Shocking, coming from a New Yorker."

"Bite me."

He grinned and crossed the floor, catching her up in an arm like he had in her father's pool months before. His teeth met her shoulder and she yelped, laughing, struggling to free herself.

"Your shirt's cold!"

"Sorry." He pulled on wet corduroys, shoved his feet into sopping socks and shoes, and made sure there were damp bills in his pocket. "Back in a minute."

"Wait!"

He'd had his fingers on the doorknob, but he turned. She picked something up from the counter and tossed it to him. He grabbed for it, scrabbling, almost dropping the little metal object. It was a key. "Thanks." He refused to speculate about what, other than return entry with breakfast, the gesture might mean as he slipped out the door of her studio loft and down four flights of stairs to the dirty street below.

It was eight-thirty or so in the morning, and the deli was still busy with late-start commuters. Despite his wet clothing, despite the early hour, James felt...elated. Happier than he could remember being in a long, long time. Maybe ever. He stood peacefully in line, waiting to order bagels and coffee, surrounded by grumpy New Yorkers. This was exactly what he'd wanted - minus Columbia, of course, but there wasn't much he could do about that right now. And it was better than he'd imagined when he made plans last spring, because now he had Em. She was...there were no words to describe what she did to him. She made him happy, but it wasn't just that. He wanted to learn the kind of brash strength she had - it seemed an invaluable asset, living in New York - and to protect the vulnerable, wounded parts of her that her parents had damaged. He wanted to feel her arms around him, hear her laughing. He wanted to introduce her to his parents but also wanted to keep her all to himself, a secret his unreliable progenitors couldn't wrest from him. If he was honest, he wanted to show her off. Look, he imagined saying to his parents. Look at this beautiful girl who's really a lot like me. Look how we fit. Look at the kind of love you're too wrapped up in booze and money to remember. If you ever knew it to begin with.

Hurrying from the deli, raindrops soaking the brown paper bag that held hot bagels, juggling tall paper cups of black coffee, James felt himself melt easily into the rhythm of this city. It was big, and overwhelming. It had as many different flavors as you could count, more than he'd experienced in Pittsburgh, certainly. It was dangerous and loud, sullen in its infrequent silences. It was home to artists, thinkers, writers...and Em. His Em. He suspected that even if his plans had not originally included New York, he might have followed her here anyway. Might have followed her just about anywhere, really.

He had to put the coffee down to turn the key in the lock, and as he juggled breakfast to the counter he heard the unmistakable splash of water.

"Coffee," Em said, "good." She was in the big bathtub, steam rising from her pinked skin as she reached for a cup. James handed it to her, unable to do more than stare, dumbfounded, at her relaxed self in the clear, hot water. "I thought you'd probably be cold, after going out in wet clothes. Come here."

He didn't have to be told twice. Dragging a produce crate over to the side of the tub, he made a little table to set breakfast on, and then shucked off his wet, clinging clothes in what he suspected was record time for him. The water level rose as he settled back across from Em, their legs entwined. It hit the middle of his chest, shrouding him in warmth. "God, this feels good."

She laughed, gracefully extending a toe to tickle his belly as she drank coffee.

"I remembered you like it black."

Em nodded, cupping her hands around her drink as if for warmth. She shouldn't be cold, though, James thought. She'd turned up the heat and (finally) closed the curtains, and her little studio was actually quite comfortably warm. She'd been busy while he was gone, he saw - almost every surface was covered with articles of his clothing, laid out to dry.

"Isn't that what a laundromat is for?" he asked, gesturing with a bagel. He rather liked cream cheese but had refrained, afraid she would refuse to kiss him if he chose to eat it now.

"Laundromats mean going out." Her voice was languorous, content, and she tipped her head back against the rim of the tub, settling into the water with boneless grace.

"Out. Right." It was hard for him to get the words out as he stared at her.

"I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling terribly motivated to move at all right now." Her eyes were closed; there was a smear of peanut butter on her lower lip.

"Maybe just a little," he said, setting his cup down and leaning forward, sliding onto his hands and knees in the deep tub. He hovered over her, buoyed by the water, and licked at the little line on her lip. He sucked the soft flesh into his mouth, held it for a moment before releasing her. "You did that on purpose."

"Of course I did." She pushed him back where he'd been, resting against the other side of the tub, but she came with him this time, settling her chest against his, wrapping her long legs around his waist. Her skin was hot - possibly even hotter than the water, James thought. His arms held her, settling against her lower back, and she nestled into the curve of his shoulder again. Wet skin, warm and slick - perfect, he thought. Then, unbidden, another thought came to him, one he wished he were man enough to push aside. Connell had never sat with her like this, in a bathtub. He didn't know how he knew it, but he did, and the thought made him glad. There were parts of her that the married man had never seen, never known. Parts that she now showed him willingly, a little at a time. She was still unsure, and James understood that. So was he. There had been a breach of trust, on both their parts, and it would take time for it to heal. Still, he thought, as she rested against him, it seemed that they were both willing to try. She'd apologized, and he knew how hard it was to do that without making excuses. Even her body, so warm, so soft, seemed like an apology of sorts as she let him hold her like this - peaceful, quiet. It wasn't about sex, not right now.

"Em?" he asked, hating to break the lovely silence but anxious to know where they stood. "Can we talk?"

"Sure." She didn't move away from him, and he hoped that was a good sign.

"I don't want to make you upset or anything. I just wanted to know what happens now."

"In regard to what?"

"Us. You, me. Look, I understand that we can't just pick up where we left off, like that thing with Connell never happened. But I love you. I don't want to lose you." He mimicked her words from the summer, not knowing if she would notice.

Her head shifted against his chest, but she wouldn't look up. "It's hard to believe, you know."

"That I love you?"

"That you're willing to try again, after what I did."

"Hey, we never said we were exclusive." They were hard words for him to get out - they felt false, somehow.

"But it wasn't fair to you," she said, her voice firm. "I should have broken things off with Connell right at the beginning. I just..." She made a frustrated noise. "What he wanted from me was so much simpler than what you did. Nobody's ever wanted me like that, and I didn't know how to handle it. I still don't."

"I don't think anybody does. I think maybe it's just one of those things you have to experience."

"You're probably right." She didn't sound terribly happy about that.

"You don't like...things like that, do you?" It wasn't as much a question as an admission that he knew this about her. "Things you can't prepare for."

"Does anyone?"

"I think there's something to be said for surprises."

She shook her head against his chest. "No good. Surprise is what brought me Francy."

"Oh." He thought about that for a long minute. "You know, it also brought me you."

Em made a strange noise that could have been either laughter or tears. "You've got to quit saying things like that to me."

"Em..." James didn't know what else to say.

She raised her head, and he hated the troubled look on her face but he didn't know what he could do to soothe it away. "You're here, I'm here. Like this. You don't need to say shit like that."

"Emily." It was the first time he'd used her full name. "Em, it's not bullshit. You're amazing."

She ducked her head again, resting her forehead against his collarbone. "I told you before, I don't know if I'm ready for this."

"You don't have to be." He rubbed the back of her neck, underneath the damp threads of her hair. It killed him, what had happened to her, and he didn't even know most of it yet. All he knew was that her mother was dead, her father absent, and her stepmother a demon. And she'd had physical relationships with so many guys - physical, but not emotional. What was it she didn't trust about herself, that she wouldn't let herself trust others? "I want you to be comfortable, and happy."

"I am," she said, turning her cheek to his skin again, her mouth finding his throat to kiss. "Right here."

And, James decided, that was good enough for now.

* * *

They wallowed in each other over the weekend - shamelessly, delightedly, learning their bodies and the way they fit together. Em had never had a guy pay this much attention to her - it was unnerving, sometimes, when he raised his head and asked her what she liked, his eyes gentle and unassuming, looking at her. At _her_, in her eyes, in a way that she was sure no one had ever looked at her before. Like the world rode on her answer, but also as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She was terrified, absolutely terrified, that she might easily learn to love being looked at like that. Because she was as sure of James as she was of anything, and that meant not terribly much...but when he looked at her like that, so sweet, so earnest, she wasn't able to doubt him. He called her beautiful and made her feel that way, and listened when she talked, like she had interesting things to say.

It was true, what she'd told him that first morning; that she didn't take many guys to bed. Sex, sure. She craved sex. For fifteen minutes or an hour she was the absolute center of someone's world, and she loved that. She loved being held, loved that for some reason it was okay to express just about any emotion while fucking - often she had used it as a sort of anger management tool. The guys never cared. They liked it if she was a little rough. She'd tried a couple of girls, too, and had in fact hoped that some real same-sex desire would emerge. _That_ would certainly enrage her father and Francy to no end. It hadn't panned out, though, and now, curled against James as he held her, she thought she could understand why. They had been nice girls, but this was what she wanted - the hardness of male flesh under her hands, but the sweetness of a gentle soul. She'd steered clear of nice guys almost since the beginning of the end, when her mother first became ill and they got the prognosis that left no hope. She never stopped to wonder whether her father had been a nice guy once, too. Certainly he was - to her at least - no longer.

"I've never let a guy sleep over before," she told him at one point over the languid weekend.

"What made you decide to this time?"

She thought about citing his lack of housing, coupled with the bad weather, but something made her cast that particular reason aside. It hadn't really been what decided her. "I trust you," she said instead, and it was true.

"I trust you, too." He'd smiled, and she was lost again.

But now it was Sunday, and he was dressed in boxers and a t-shirt, sprawled on the scuffed floorboards of her apartment with the classifieds section of the Sunday New York Times and some Chinese takeout in little paper boxes. She was on her bed, supposedly studying but really not doing much of anything except thinking. She had to go to school tomorrow, and she didn't want to. It sounded like a terrible idea, leaving the comforting den they'd somehow created over the weekend. She liked her little studio well enough, generally, but with James there with her, it was like they had the power to shut the rest of the world out. Pennsylvania didn't have to exist, and neither did New York if they didn't want it to.

They. It was the first time, that she could remember, that she had ever thought of herself and another person as a _they_, as a unified entity. She'd had relationships, sure. Even other guys who'd tried to say they loved her. It had felt nice enough, but nothing had really clicked until James, and now she didn't want to be apart.

"I still don't see why you have to find your own place," she told him, feeling a little irritable because she did in fact understand his reasons and they were good ones. They just didn't fit with her desire to have him around all the time.

"Because I don't want you feeling like you have to support me," he said, even though they'd been over this before. He didn't seem to mind rehashing things as long as they weren't major fights. "Economically, I mean. I'd like your emotional support, if that's possible. You told me once that you needed to take things slow, and I think that's really good advice." He grinned at her, and she couldn't help smiling back. "I don't want us getting codependent. I don't want to screw this up again, so I want us to be very clear about what we're doing before we do it. I'll find a place month-to-month, and we'll take it from there."

He was right. It all made perfect sense - it was responsible, clear-headed. That didn't mean she had to like it.

James crawled across the floor until he was next to the bed. Kneeling, he pressed his forehead against hers. "There's a really big part of me that would like nothing better than to run away with you. Elope to Paris or something, and never look back."

She stared at him. Had he really said what she thought he said? Elope? The strange, old-fashioned word held a wealth of meaning: a rejection of their respective parents, certainly, but also...marriage. It was a prospect she'd never before considered, and one she didn't particularly relish, even with James.

"Steal you away, you know?" he went on. "In some sort of drastic way your dad would understand. I'm just afraid it isn't the right choice, even if it is the romantic one. In literary terms," he was quick to qualify. "Romanticism is - "

"I know what it means." She shook her head, one side of her mouth raised in an impossibly fond half-smile. "I never expected I'd fall for a dreamer."

"Is that bad?"

She shook her head, put a loose fist on his shoulder, and kissed him. "Just don't ask me to marry you and we'll be fine."

"You got it." He kissed her again, his mouth lingering against hers. "So...we're okay?" he asked, pulling away just enough to find her eyes. "With the plan and everything?"

"Yeah." She wasn't entirely happy about it - she wanted him close. But his reasons were sound and she trusted him. She would try to trust herself, too.

"Would you tell me if we weren't?"

She smiled; he was getting to know her well. "I think so," she said, tracing light fingertips across his full lower lip. He wasn't a pretty boy, or terribly masculine, either. Certainly not rugged. But there was something appealing about his face - it was slightly off, like several different designers had been using just slightly different plans. But she liked watching his mouth when he talked, liked his curly hair and expressive eyes. She liked the books he read. "I understand and all. I just want you near."

"That's what I want, too." He kissed her again. "We'll get there."

And she believed him. God help her, she believed him.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: All standard disclaimers apply. Also, sorry this is shorter than the last chapter. I was having a hard time figuring out where to break it. Just means next chapter will be longer, this way._

**Room For Me**

* * *

That night she curled in his arms, nestled against him, wondering whether this were the last time they would sleep like this, and for how long. She craved this, the warmth of another human being, one who didn't ask anything more of her than she was willing to give. Idly, nestled against the wiry firmness of James' chest, she thought about introducing him to her father, for real this time. Introducing him not as a friend, but as a partner, a lover. Someone who thought she was worth knowing, worth possibly - maybe - spending a good chunk of life with.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, his voice buzzing against her cheek.

"About my dad. And you."

"Maybe we can go back over Christmas break, huh?"

"No." Her voice was emphatic. "I never go back for the holidays."

He craned his head, trying to look at her without disturbing her. "Never?"

"Nope."

"So, what, do you like...stay here? Alone?"

She shrugged.

"Em..."

"I hate going back there. You know that. The holidays just make it worse."

"I know, sweetheart."

She froze. No one had ever called her a pet name before - not like that. Baby' all the time from men who wanted to get in her pants, sure, but that was about it. She'd been Em for so long that it didn't seem to count; her mother had fondly started shortening her name when she was a very small little rough and tumble tomboy.

Her father had quickly tired of having a dirty little girl with skinned knees running around his house, but as hard as she tried she just couldn't make herself into the kind of little princess her father wanted to show off at business parties. He tried to hide her away as much as possible, especially after the Christmas debacle of 1972. Six years old, clad in an itchy green velvet dress that made her sweat in the overheated parlor of an important senior partner, she'd already spent most of the day with her hair yanked painfully into old-fashioned steel curlers and her small young patience could not take any more. So many faceless men and their drab wives had bent to her level to pet her cheeks and tug her curls, and she was almost panting with the heat and the overwhelming press of adult bodies.

It was too much. She took a deep breath of cigarette-tainted air and said, very deliberately, "Get the fuck off of me!" She shoved hard at the bulging male belly in front of her with her two little fists and ran, ducking away from her father's grasping hands. Darting between the legs of horrified adults in shiny flats and colorful pumps, she thought she saw an escape route through a doorway to the back yard. She ran, hunched over, her only thought of freedom. Three seconds later she felt fire - there was blackness, and her memory swirled into darkness. She woke some time later - she didn't know how long, exactly - in an emergency room, her head and one arm stitched and bandaged from running through a sliding-glass door.

Her mother had held her, laughing and crying at the same time, and had happily helped her take the hated dress off as they got ready to leave the hospital. Em remembered bouncing a little in her stocking feet on the cold linoleum floor, the chilly, antiseptic hospital air swirling around her bare arms as she stood in just a little satin slip, until her mother wrapped her in her own red wool coat and took her into her arms, nuzzling and kissing her face repeatedly. Em didn't remember anything her mother might have said that night, but she remembered how she felt in her arms - remembered that her father had not been there, either.

She could still find some faint traces of scar around her hairline if she looked closely in the mirror, but she rarely tried.

Now she pressed closer to James in the familiar darkness of her studio apartment, listening to the comforting noise of street cleaners and distant sirens. "You're beautiful," she whispered, and felt his half-asleep kiss in her hair. Sometimes she missed her mother so much that the longing rose up in her throat, swelling into a dark, writhing thing that choked her and made it impossible to breathe. She didn't know if her father ever felt the same way. Her mother had been a taboo subject in the household practically before the funeral had ended, and even if she hadn't been, Em knew she wouldn't have bothered trying to talk to her father about her mother anyway. They weren't like that, she and her dad. They weren't anything - weren't a they' at all.

"Em, are you crying?"

She didn't answer, but pressed herself against him. He pulled her fully into his arms, turning them gently until they lay on their sides, her back pressed to his front. He held her firmly and she sighed, loving the feel of arms around her, of steady warmth against her back.

* * *

The knock on his door surprised James, and he stopped his contemplation of the inside of his nearly-empty refrigerator to peer out the little fish-lens peephole in the door. A couple of boxes of stuff lay strewn around the nearly-empty room that he had to admit he hadn't ended up spending much time in. Now that December had blanketed the city with grimy slush and the temperature had plummeted sharply, he'd agreed to the inevitable and not renewed his lease. Em was just as happy as he was, particularly about the fact that two people slept warmer together than apart. They'd spent somewhere around four months playing this game of not living together, though they'd both known it was a farce. They bounced back and forth between their two studios, hating when it was time to say goodnight but strictly maintaining a no-sleeping-over rule during weekdays, when Em had to be up for classes and he for work. He'd hoped the separate apartments would give them time to nurture the relationship without rushing into things, which it had. But his additional hope that it would reduce the stress on them had not panned out. He had a hard time sleeping without her - a hard time doing anything without her, really. After coming to New York and obtaining a library card - almost his first act upon acquiring an address - he'd delved deep among the psychology shelves, looking for information about relationships. Discarding anything written before 1968 or so as hopelessly antiquated, he'd sat down at a study carrel and began reading up on what to expect. This feeling of utter absorption with Em, he learned, was entirely normal. They needed to have the time to revel in the experience of new love, and armed with expert testimony James happily abandoned himself to the gravitational pull Em exerted over him. He was moving to her place - which was bigger, nicer, in a better part of town - and had already written his parents, informing them of his change of address. Not the reason - he wasn't quite sure how to bring that up. He wasn't ashamed of Em - quite the opposite, in fact - but he didn't know how he wanted to handle her introduction just yet. Her reluctance to return to Pittsburgh just made it that much harder.

James stared through the peephole, not quite grasping what he was seeing on the other side. Slowly, as if in a dream, he opened the door to his mother.

"Sweetie!" she said, pressing her cheek to his as she stepped into the room.

"Mom?" Em expected him within the hour - he was doing a little moving prep each day, and tonight's task had been cleaning out and defrosting his little refrigerator. And it wasn't that Em would get mad at him for being late or anything, but he didn't want to spend any more time away from her than he had to.

"Honey, listen; your dad's watching the car - what were you thinking, a neighborhood like this?" She shook her head at the limp mattress on the floor and the sagging orange tweed couch, the only furniture in the room.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" He picked up a dirty shirt and then dropped it again, unsure of whether he'd meant to fold it or just put it in his big army duffel bag. Where was his bag, anyway? It was hard to see anything except the shiny, lacquered aura of his mother, standing in the middle of the smelly, ratty room he'd called home for the past few months.

"We got your letter, sweetie, and had to come see you. You didn't leave us a phone number, you know."

"Mom, I don't have a phone."

"Why not? Are you a barbarian now? Some sort of...urban cave dweller?" She wrinkled her nose at the little room. "Your father and I were very confused about why you'd choose to move so soon after settling in. Now I see - honey, you don't have to live in places like this. You can always come home."

James felt his panic levels rising. He hadn't expected to have this discussion with his parents quite yet, but he didn't feel that he could just straight-out lie to their faces. "No, Mom. The room's fine."

"This is _not_ fine."

"It is for a budget like mine in New York."

"Then tell me how you're affording to move someplace better." She folded her arms and leveled a look at him that he hadn't seen in quite some time. It was the look of a mother who knew something was going on, and meant to find out what it was.

So he told the truth. "I'm moving in with someone."

"A roommate?" his mother asked delicately. "Oh, does that mean a real apartment, with actual rooms and everything?" Her face brightened, but for some reason to James it looked like a very false hope.

"No," he said, trying to keep his voice slow and even. This was a difficult task for him; he knew he often spoke too fast and tripped over his words in his haste to get them out. "It's another studio, but it's bigger and a better location, near the Village."

It was clear to him that his mother had no idea what that meant.

"But how are you supposed to share one room?" she wanted to know. "What if you wanted to have a friend over, or a girl?"

James tried to hide a grin but failed miserably. "I don't think it would go over too well if I tried bringing a girl home," he said, "because I'm moving in with one."

"Your roommate's a girl?"

"No, mom. You're not listening." He took a deep breath, released it, and dug his wallet out of his back pocket. He slid a photo of Em out of its protective plastic sheath and passed it to his mother. It was a picture he liked immensely - Em was laughing, her hair blowing around her face in the wind, standing out vibrantly against a crumbling brick background. He had another photo of her that he kept with him at all times, but it wasn't the sort you showed your mother.

She took the picture from his hand slowly, with trepidation, as if she knew that this moment would change their relationship forever. "That's Em," he told her gently, suddenly feeling oddly sympathetic toward the mother who had broken so many promises, failed to follow through in so many ways. "Emily Lewin. She's the one I'm moving in with."

James watched his mother study Em's photo, wondering what she was thinking. He didn't have to wait long. "She has crooked teeth," the older woman observed, sniffing a little.

"So do I. I like them. They make her smile that much brighter."

"Lewin, did you say? Not Bob Lewin's little girl? From Pittsburgh?"

"You know the Lewins?"

"Not well," she said, drumming her fingers against Em's picture. "We entertained in different circles, you understand. But I heard that girl of his was a handful, especially since her mother died. Always saying and doing the most inappropriate things around company."

"She hates those kind of people." James hadn't expected much better from his mother, but her snippy dismissal of Em still made him angry. "And she hates her dad's new wife - and, from what I hear, with good reason."

"James, honey, don't you think we should talk about this before you go rushing into it?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't. You're not supporting me financially, so, with all due respect, I don't think you have much say in how I choose to live my life." He took his photo back though his mother had not offered to return it. "You can come with me to meet her, if you want, but I love her and I'm not changing my mind."

"James, you can't be serious."

"I'm completely serious." He slung a box under his arm and fished his keys out of his pocket. "Are you coming?"


End file.
